May 20 2009 Human Evolution's 'Missing Link' Found, Surprisngly Not Your Mom. Oooh, Burn!
A 47-million year old skeleton of what is believed to be the "missing link" in human's evolutionary split from tree-swinging, bug picking, shit throwing apes has been found in Germany and nicknamed "Ida".
"This is the first link to all humans," Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, said in a statement. Ida represents "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor."
Ida, properly known as Darwinius masillae, has a unique anatomy. The lemur-like skeleton features primate-like characteristics, including grasping hands, opposable thumbs, clawless digits with nails, and relatively short limbs.
Now I know what you're thinking, and yes, I would hit that like a bushel of bananas with a coconut. Ha, what do you mean that's like my great great great great great great great great great grandmother to the thousandth power? AND SO WHAT IF IT IS?
"MISSING LINK" FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs? [nationalgeographic]
Thanks to Matty, Chris, chubo, Andrew, Jon, Dylan and Paul, who have all slept with cavewomen and liked it. Furplay, baby.
Apr 8 2009 Smart: Chimps Exchange Meat For Sex
In a move that proves that chimps have created a much awesomer society than we have, researchers have discovered that males will trade meat to females in return for regular sexy times. And apparently the NOMs for PEWs exchange program is completely legit in their advanced legal system!
This is a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.
"What's amazing is that if a male shares with a particular female, he doubles the number of times he copulates with her, which is likely to increase the probability of fertilising that female."
Yow yow! Is all this Animal Planet talk making anyone else in here steamy? I swear, meat for sex, that's even better than a handful of $20's! Now, where can I rent a monkey suit this far from Halloween? Also, hot wings. I'm gonna need hot wings.
Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex [bbcnews]
Thanks to Ross, who wants to come in the next life as a chimp.
Feb 12 2009 Donkey Kong T-Shirt Turns Man Into Ape
Ever wanted to pretend you were an ape? Well you don't need a novelty t-shirt. You just crouch down real low and drag your knuckles on the ground and grunt a whole bunch. That's what I do, and I, my friends, was a gorilla for Halloween one year. The defense rests. Anyway, for a spine-tingling $28 you can get this (probably unlicensed) Donkey Kong t-shirt. And speaking of Donkey Kong, the snow levels in Donkey Kong Country -- ugh! I threw my controller at the TV not once, not twice, but twenty-thrice. SCREW YOU, STUPID SPINNING LAUNCH BARRELS! And, while I'm at it, suck it Zelda II! Wait, was that....blasphemous? Oh my God, what have I done?
Thanks to Russell, who needs no excuse to hurl barrels at unsuspecting plumbers.
Jan 2 2009 D+Caf Strips Detect Amount Of Caffeine In Your Coffee, Ur+In Strips Coming Soon
Some people drink decaf coffee. These people, given normal coffee, will go apeshit, bouncing off the walls and breaking things. Given espresso, they will spontaneously human combust and create a black (coffee) hole that will smell like fresh roasted beans and suck many an oblivious barista into its odoriferous depths. That's why it's important they never drink regular coffee or a Red Bull. To keep the rest of the world safe from these people, somebody developed D+Caf strips.
D+caf test strips are simply little strips of paper coated with antibodies that tell if you a beverage is properly decaffeinated, turning up blue lines if it's got more than 20mg of caffeine per 6oz serving. Even modern decaffeination procedures can't remove every single trace of caffeine, but between 20 and 30 percent of coffee and tea drinks "contain unacceptably high levels of caffeine" according to the strip's maker, Silver Lakes Research.
A box of 20 strips costs $10 and I really wish they were Roof+e strips instead because the Superficial Writer keeps eyeing me salaciously and encouraging me to chug my Appletini.
D+Caf Detects If You're Drinking Real Coffee Instead of Decaf [gizmodo]
Dec 29 2008 50-Foot Asimo To Lead Rose Bowl Parade
Honda is rocking out with their robot out January 1st at the Tournament of Roses on January 1st in Pasadena, California. That's right, a 50-foot likeness of Asimo, the harbinger of our destruction, will lead the parade along with a Honda FCX Clarity (fuel cell car). Be sure to tune in and watch the giant robotic bastard go rogue and start stomping dancers and bystanders. Which, I think we can all agree, will make for some awesome freaking television.
Hit the jump for two more pictures, including one of construction.
Oct 27 2008 Oh God, No. No, No, No: Robot Determines Humans Taste Like Bacon, Are Delicious
Great. NEC's Tasting Robot, the diminutive bastard originally designed to assess wines, has now assessed humans -- and determined they'd taste delicious.
It's all pretty straightforward tech: stick a bit of nosh in front of the robogourmet's infrared spectrometer and it analyzes the reflected light to determine the chemical composition of the sample. A nice trick, although it can only be programmed to accurately identify a few dozen wines.
Innocent enough, you may think. However, when NEC demonstrated the cybersommelier to a reporter and snapper from Associated Press, the robot claimed the former's hand tasted of prosciutto ham, while the latter apparently had the unmistakable whiff of bacon about him.
Great, so it looks like we might end up fighting the robot and zombie apocalypses simultaneously. Wow, could today get any better? Not unless I get hit by a delivery truck. Oh shit -- or see a boob.
Humans taste of bacon, says gourmet robot [theregister]
Thanks to Birchie, king of ruining my day.
Oct 15 2008
Fun For All No Ages: Donkey Kong Jenga
Remember Jenga, the hilarious party game that always ends with some drunk chick hiding a few of the blocks in her thingamajig? Me neither! But now there's a Donkey Kong version apparently.
Build your Donkey Kong themed Jenga tower the traditional way or climb the girders with your Mario mover and save Pauline from Donkey Kong in a new and even more challenging way to play.
The new set costs $25 and is coming soon. And speaking of which, The Geekologie Writer is heading out on a U.S. tour soon, and may be coming to your city! And if he does, guess what? He's sleeping on your floor!
Product Page
Thanks to martygras9, who's got me all thinking about boobs again.
Oct 2 2008 Teenager Throws Kickass Party
This kid is the textbook definition of douchenozzle.
Thanks to Tyler, the real party legend.
Sep 30 2008 What?: Man Punches Shark To Save Dog
Some guy allegedly punched a shark in the face to save his rat terrier, quite possibly making him the manliest man womanly enough to actually own a rat terrier.
Man punches shark [cnn]
Thanks to Julian, who once punched a shark in the nads for taking a bite of his tuna-salad sandwich.
Sep 23 2008 Cribs: Geekologie Writer Edition
I guess things got a little out of hand.
Hit the jump for more of the disgustingness, as well as a link to a whole gallery.
Sep 3 2008 Robotic Spider To Destroy Liverpool On Friday
A 50-foot robotic spider, which has been sitting dormant on the side of an office building since last night, is going to come alive on Friday and destroy the everliving shit out of Liverpool.
Weighing 37 tons and standing 50ft high, the spider is currently clinging to the side of Concourse Tower in the city.
The huge insect spotted in Liverpool is in fact entirely mechanical and part of a new piece of street theater organized to mark its year as Capital of Culture.It is thought the insect will come down from its current position tomorrow and then 'wake up' on Friday before starting to explore the city.
Tens of thousands of visitors are expected in Liverpool over the three days to try and see the mechanical arachnid.
Make that tens of thousands of soon to be dead visitors. Seriously, would you rather take your chances trying to catch a glimpse of a giant robotic spider or, I dunno, live? You're still gonna go see it aren't you? Haha, I can read you like a graphic novel.
Hit the jump for several more pictures of the last thing a buch of Liverpudlians will ever see.
Continue Reading " Robotic Spider To Destroy Liverpool On Friday "
Aug 26 2008 Move Over, Goblin Shark: Robots Are Scarier
I told you. I told you robots would kill us all. This is a clip from a new BBC show, The Wrong Door, which is about robots and how much they want to hurt us. And speaking of the wrong door, I accidentally opened my roommate's after grabbing a snack in the middle of the night. Hello anime comic, hello penis in hand! Hello awkward silence, lifelong scarring, new roommate wanted ad.
The Wrong Door: If Terry Gilliam Directed Transformers as a TV Variety Show [gizmodo]
Aug 26 2008 A Million Person Pyramid To Be Built?
Well, we've seen London's 100,000 person tower concept, and Japan's 1,000,000 person pyramid of doom, and now, unsurprisingly, Dubai wants in on the action. Dubai-based architecture firm Timelinks has developed plans for a million person ziggurat. What the hell's a ziggurat? "A ziggurat was a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Iran, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. Some modern buildings with a step pyramid shape have also been termed ziggurats."
It may sound like just another concept that'll never be a reality, but Timelinks already set about patenting the design as well as the technology that would make it possible. The structure, nearly a whole square mile by design, would use a combination of steam, wind, and other alternative energy-gathering methods to keep itself entirely off the grid. There would also be "green spaces" that would provide the pyramidal city with agricultural space, to provide food and green-based commerce.
Hey, I'm all for a million person pyramid. But how about some $25,000 pyramid?
"You're a failure. I want to sleep with my cycling instructor. Your penis is four sizes too small."
Things my girlfriend tells me, FTW!
The Dubai Ziggurat: 1 million living souls in a pyramid, entirely self-contained [dvice]
Aug 22 2008 Swarm-Bots: Child Stealing Robots (Seriously)
Every wonder what it would look like if a bunch of little robots ganged up on a kid and dragged it across the floor? This.
The video is 3:00 long, so just let it load and then skip towards the end for the full effect.
Thanks Michael, you wanna come over and help me install casters on the kids' PJs?
Aug 13 2008 Uh-Oh: Robot Controlled By Rat Brain Cells
Some idiotic scientists at Reading University have developed a robot that is controlled by rat brain cells. Run for your life!
The neurons are now being taught to steer the robot around obstacles and avoid the walls of the small pen in which it is kept. By studying what happens to the neurons as they learn its creators hope to reveal how memories are laid down.
As the cells are living tissue, they are kept separate from the robot in a temperature-controlled cabinet in a container pitted with electrodes. Signals are passed to and from the robot via Bluetooth short-range radio.The brain cells have been taught how to control the robot's movements so it can steer round obstacles and the next step, say its creators, is to get it to recognize its surroundings.
Apparently they then plan to disrupt the memories in an attempt to recreate Alzheimer's and Parkinson's like conditions. Now I'm all for the better understanding and curing of disease, but please, for the love of the human race, please be careful you crazy assholes! One time my mom found a rat in the basement and it was my job to try to beat it to death with a broom. You know what it did? The little f***er bit me. Now if he had been controlling a BigDog, I'd have been a goner. Just saying, have you ever seen The Matrix? I haven't, is it worth renting?
Hit the jump for a short video of the rat-brained robot in action.
Continue Reading " Uh-Oh: Robot Controlled By Rat Brain Cells "
Aug 1 2008 I Called It!: The Apocalypse Is Nigh
When running from a robot, you only have to run faster than your children. Which should be easy because you tied their laces together, right? If you answered, "I would never!", then it's been nice knowing you, but you're robot fodder. Anyway, remember the post a while back about Robokiyu (pronounced Robokillyou), a robot used to extract the wounded in emergency rescue situations? Well, unsurprisingly, the robot is now going to be used to eat the dead instead of the living. Why? Because everybody the robot came to "rescue", no matter how badly injured, actually tried crawling away from the damn thing. Can you blame them? Absolutely not. Like my grandpa always told me, "I'd rather have all my red run out than let one of them thar robotech sums of bitches nom nom my gray spaghetti. You understand what I'm tellin' ya, boy?" I'd shake my head "no", but he'd keep right on, "Good, now fetch the hootch and I'll tell you about the time I caught your pa humpin' a tractor."
Weirdest Robots Ever -- Corpse-Eater Bot [asylum]
Thanks Adam and MoMan, now let's take that mother out.
Jul 18 2008 Guy Finds Mysterious Keylogger In Laptop
Some guy opened his laptop to make a repair and found a rogue keylogger up in that mother.
What could this mean? I called Dell tech support about it, and they said, and I quote, "The integrated service tag identifier is there for assisting customers in the event of lost or misplaced personal information." He then hung up.I called the police, as having a keylogger unknown to me in my laptop is a serious offense. They told me to call the Department of Homeland Security. At this point, I am in disbelief. Why would the DHS have a keylogger in my laptop? It was surreal.
So I called them, and they told me to submit a Freedom of Information Act request.
You can read a scanned copy of the reply to his request after the jump, but it basically says his request warrants no freedom of information. DHS for the win! Needless to say, I'm ripping my laptop apart right now.
UPDATE: Okay, I didn't find any mysterious keyloggers, but I did find a couple rogue Cheetos.
UPDATE UPDATE: False alarm. Purportedly fake -- and old. But I'm man enough to admit when I've screwed up, and this was clearly my tipsters fault. Whew, back to surfing porn.
Hit the jump for a scanned copy of the DHS reply to the request for information.
Continue Reading " Guy Finds Mysterious Keylogger In Laptop "
Jul 11 2008 OMG, OMG, WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW!!!
This is a video of a guy lying down on a motorcycle and text messaging, all while cruising down the highway in New Delhi, India. No way? Yes way! And also, holy shit!
Have a great weekend everybody.
Thanks to Lockjaw and Julian for showing me the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
Jul 11 2008 Redneck Mansion: Too Good To Be True
I knew when I saw these pictures they were too good to be true. And sadly, they are. I had to do some interweb spelunking but, finally, got to the bottom of their origin. Touted around the net as a "redneck mansion", the structure was actually the set for a performance of Anton Chekhov's play Ivanov at an outdoor theater in Amsterdam. So yeah, shit. Still an awesome setup though, I'd totally live there. Anybody want to get together and build something similar? I'm thinking something like an Ewok village in the trees, but with double-wides. Who's with me? Also, I apologize to all of those who had their hopes up for this being a real redneck mansion. Believe me, I was right there with you. This is the second time in 24 hours I've been tricked into thinking something was something that it's not. The first being the dude still asleep in my bed.
Hit the jump for a couple more pictures of the thing.
Jul 9 2008 Great, Just Great: DARPA Awards Grant To Make T-1000's, Kill Us In Our Sleep
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded Tufts University a $3.3 million contract to develop T-1000 shape-shifters so they can squeeze under doors and through cracks and shit to kill us all. Part of the original DARPA solicitation for proposals follows.
The ability to safely and covertly gain access to denied or hostile areas and perform useful tasks provides critical advantages to warfighters over a broad spectrum of military operations. An effective and logistically attractive means for gaining entry to denied areas is to deploy an unmanned platform, such as a robot. However, often the only available points of entry are small openings in buildings, walls, under doors, etc. In these cases, a robot must be soft enough to squeeze or traverse through small openings, yet large enough to carry an operationally meaningful payload. Current robotic platforms are constructed primarily from hard materials and, while capable of locomotion with embedded payloads, cannot change their physical dimensions to rapidly traverse arbitrary size/shape openings whose dimensions are much smaller than the robot itself and are not known a-priori.
You thought I was joking, didn't you? Well I wasn't. And I wasn't joking when I just boarded up the door and windows of my apartment either either. I'll be damned if I'm done in by some mercury-ass blob. Ha, I forgot to let the girlfriend in. I can hear her out front pounding...the UPS guy. What a freaking slut.
Hit the links for more in-depth articles that I stopped reading because they were creeping me out.
Tufts to develop morphing 'chemical robots' [physorg]
via
Shape-shifting, organ-probing chembots coming soon [engadget]
DARPA Solicitation For Proposals
Thanks Ryan and Benjamin, I hate living anyways.
